How much are unhappy teachers costing NJ?

Disrespect and workload burdens were blamed for the burnout.

About 13 percent of the nation’s 3.4 million teachers move jobs or leave the profession each year, at a cost of up to $2.2 billion nationwide, according to a recently released report.(Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Story Highlights

Teacher turnover cost state taxpayers between $28 million and $61 million, according to one study.

About 6,500 of the state's 125,000 teachers left in the 2008-09 school year.

In 2011, 6,590 New Jersey teachers left the profession, according to the NJEA.

Disobedient students. Heavy workloads. Standardized testing mandates. Public disdain for the profession. Teachers and experts say these are just a few of the factors that send educators running from careers in education.

About 13 percent of the nation's 3.4 million teachers move jobs or leave the profession each year, at a cost of up to $2.2 billion nationwide, according to a recently released report.

As the state's roughly 117,000 teachers head back to school this month, many may be unhappy working in the field: Only 39 percent of educators nationwide said they were very satisfied with their jobs in a 2013 MetLife study. That's a 23 percentage point drop from 2008.

The drain is costing billions, according to study results released this summer by the Alliance for Excellent Education, a reform advocacy group. Experts say the bleeding can be stopped by stepping up career development opportunities for educators and changing a negative public perception of teachers.

Last year, 3,494 teachers left New Jersey's pension fund for educators, according to data supplied by the New Jersey Education Association. In eight of the last nine years, between 3,000 and 4,400 teachers left the pension fund in a given year. In 2011, about 6,590 teachers left the profession, according to the data.

Dayna Stein, 43, of Red Bank is among those who chose to leave. After 15 years in the field, she quit teaching to pursue a masters in social work.

"Teachers used to be valued, treated as experts, and supported by administrators and parents," she said in an email. "The teaching profession became something I no longer recognized, and no longer wanted to be part of."

When Stein began teaching, she said the profession focused on the development of each child's academic, social and emotional growth. Today, that has been replaced with an emphasis on test scores that fail to recognize each student's invidual abilities, she said.

New Jersey has adopted new and more rigorous curriculum standards, and many teachers will have students' standardized test scores counted toward their annual evaluations. The MetLife study also cited budget cuts and fewer professional development opportunities as factors connected to stressed-out educators.

"I got into teaching to 'make a difference' and when I realized I could do more of that in another profession, I decided to leave," she said.

The dissatisfaction comes with a price: Teacher turnover cost New Jersey taxpayers between $28 million and $61 million in 2008-09 alone. That's the expense associated with training, recruiting and mentoring the new hires needed to fill the gap, says Richard Ingersoll of the University of Pennsylvania, a professor of education and sociology.

Nationwide, teachers leaving the profession cost United States taxpayers between $1 billion and $2.2 billion in the 2008-09 school year, according to Ingersoll.

"It's very high levels (of turnover) in the first few years (of teaching)," Ingersoll said. "We lose a lot of people before they become good at it."

Ingersoll said many new teachers leave because of too many demands with too little time given to complete them, and a lack of administrative support.

"You get in there and it's rough and you're on your own. And it doesn't pay well," he said. "There's lot of student discipline problems."

Though the number of incidents of violence and vandalism in New Jersey schools dropped 19 percent between 2011-12 and 2012-13, districts still handled about 21,170 incidents in the latter school year.

Leadership troubles

High administrative turnover also contributes to teacher attrition. Changing leadership strains already-stressed educators, says Patricia Wright, executive director of the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association. Superintendents left and retired at higher than normal rates as a state-mandated cap on their salaries took effect in New Jersey in 2011.

"It really does take a toll on a school when there's a large turnover rate," Wright said. "Leadership sets a vision. Leadership sets the district on a course."

Paige Vaccaro, 35, of Ocean Township would agree that leadership sets the district's course. Vaccaro said she decided to leave her job as a seventh-grade teacher after she says administrators didn't respond to her proposals for helping increase student literacy and to promote transparency between the board, staff and parents.

She resigned Tuesday at a meeting of the Ocean Township Board of Education.

"Every single challenge that (schools face) right now, whether it be lagging test scores, bullying, losing the best and brightest students to private and magnet schools, a growing immigrant population, increased crime, underage drinking or heroin abuse, cannot be avoided," Vaccaro said. "However, they can be overcome" if a district takes the necessary steps, she said.

But NJEA spokesman Steve Baker questioned Ingersoll's estimates of teacher turnover, saying that two-thirds of teachers leaving the profession are retiring, and that only 2 percent of the public school workforce leaves in a given year for other reasons.

"Not all turnover is bad," Baker said. "Not everybody has the skill and the dedication to be a teacher."

Reform battle

Gov. Chris Christie in 2012 moved forward with plans for education reform that included a new evaluation system that supporters say will better hold teachers accountable for student success and would weed out underperforming educators.

After backlash from teachers, math and language arts teachers' student test scores will now account for 10 percent of total evaluations, down from 30 percent earlier this year. Next year, the test is expected to count for up to 20 percent of the evaluation score.

Classroom observation and student growth goals will make up the rest of the evaluations.

Christie earlier this month also named a panel that will evaluate possible overhauls that could reduce public employees' benefits through the state's retirement and health benefits system.

Science teacher John Napolitani, who also is Asbury Park Education Association president, says he believes many teachers love the job despite recent changes. He says they're dedicated to serving schools' most important stakeholders — the students.

"In Asbury Park, we act as the parent, we act as the psychologist, the doctor, the friend. So it's a frustrating scenario," Napolitani said. "But it's not the kids that are the problem in the school system.

"You have people making decisions in the state DOE that have been so far removed from the classroom and they're making all the decisions on tenure reform, teacher evaluations, Common Core, and they just don't have a clue what we deal with...We've had people retiring because they are fed up."

Most of the teacher turnover occurs in poor and urban districts like Asbury Park, according to the Alliance report. Nationwide about 20 percent of teachers leave those districts each year, according to the Alliance. The organization estimates that between 40 and 50 percent of new teachers in poor districts leave the profession after five years.

Better support

Asbury Park school officials said they plan to do more this year to retain and support teachers here, where there has been a 31.5 percent poverty rate and a 51 percent graduation rate.

About 14 or 15 retirements occurred in the district in the past school year, Interim Superintendent Robert Mahon says. But Mahon said Asbury Park pays higher than average teacher salaries for Monmouth County, and offers an attractive benefits package to retain teachers.

The median salary for a teacher in Asbury Park was $65,055 in 2012, more than the statewide median of $62,875.

"We're not the highest paid in the county, but we're not the lowest," he said. "I think it's an attractive place for staff members."

The district saw a 35 percent drop in teaching staff in the past decade but also saw a 57 percent drop in student enrollment.

Napolitani said the district applied for and received three NJEA Priority Schools Initiatives Grants, aimed at bringing specially trained retired teachers in to work with staff to improve curriculum and classroom instruction. Napolitani did not immediately have information on the grants' sizes.

"My mentality is we can improve this, we can make it better," Napolitani said.

It's the kind of support system that will help end high turnover, according to experts including Ingersoll. Changing the tide will depend on providing adequate supports and mentoring for new teachers to help them manage workloads and student discipline problems, they say.

An image problem

Educators said a revival in respect for their work also is needed to stem the outflow.

"Teachers feel valued and respected in some of the top-ranked countries" in education, said Wright, of the Principals and Supervisors Association. "In our society right now, there has been a shift to not that respectful an attitude toward the profession... and I think that takes a toll."

A negative public perception may persist because of what many perceive to be the "perks" of being a teacher, says Jason Richwine, a senior policy analyst at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation.

Richwine said the summer break, along with pension and benefits, are "certainly a perk": New Jersey teachers had in 2012 the highest starting-teacher salary in the nation, at $44,872, and had among the nation's top five average teacher salaries at $63,111 in 2010, according to the National Education Association.

New Jersey teachers had an average salary of $69,231 in 2013, up $442 from 2012.

Most are contracted to work about 180 days a year.

"Just in the most basic sense … if you're getting paid, say $75,000 for a year, that's obviously not as good as getting it for working 10 months," Richwine said.

But NJEA's Baker says the "perk" doesn't take into account the preparation and research educators must do over the summer to keep their curricula fresh.

Brian Sullivan of Freehold said it's also important for the public to divorce their perception of unions and those organizations' fiscal demands from their perceptions of teachers.

"As a public employee (who is not a teacher) I am all too aware that (unions) do not speak for all of us but can do a wonderful job of making us look bad," Sullivan said. "In the case of the NJEA, that union...would gladly empty our wallets."

William Bates, 18, who graduated this year from Jackson Memorial High School, said his teachers dealt with stressors ranging from students ignoring instructions and damaging expensive equipment in his film classes to blatantly using cellphones while teachers were trying to lead lessons.

But he says his teachers' tenacity inspired him to want to become an educator after he spends some time working in the film industry.

"I know some students who have said a teacher didn't really engage much with the class and it was kind of boring," Bates said. "My teachers seemed to enjoy it. They had fun with it. Every day was a different project...We should be recognizing them for what they're doing and thank them."

Contributing: Alesha Williams Boyd

Amanda Oglesby: 732-557-5701; aoglesby@app.com

SOCIAL SPOTLIGHT

We asked our Facebook readers what pressures lead to teacher turnover. Here's what they said:

Bonnie MacMillan The days of teachers lasting for many years is over- too much pressure, test scores being tied to your competence- it's hard work and takes time.

Tom OConnor Retired after 35 years, yet continue to mentor new teachers, or those having difficulty. I always gave pre and post tests, and kept records of attendance, parental support, referrals when additional services were required, etc. I...never let testing intimidate my teaching.

Russell Smejkal Some Teachers have been there for so long and are so close to Each other that when a new teacher comes in the older teachers make them feel like they don't want them there.

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6,590

Number of teachers in New Jersey who left the profession in 2011, according to the NJEA teachers union.

39%

Teachers nationwide who said they were very satisfied with their jobs in a 2013 MetLife study — a drop of 23 percentage points from 2008.